Blog
Category: Articles
15
Jul
2011
In Articles
How To
SEO (Findability | Search Visibility)
Web Strategy
Website Design
By Marcia K
Quick and Dirty Guide to Evaluating Web Creative
On 15, Jul 2011 | In Articles, How To, SEO (Findability | Search Visibility), Web Strategy, Website Design | By Marcia K
Source: Quick & Dirty Records A lot of people don’t know how to evaluate web creative, so here’s a quick and dirty guide. Before You Begin First of all, go back and read the creative brief with a highlighter. Highlight the communication objectives and what the brand is all about. Put the highlighted portion of the brief to the right of your computer (assuming you are right handed). Now look at the comp. Comp stands for “comprehensive” – meaning all the copy and artwork is supposed to be in the right place in the layout … but not necessarily all the copy and artwork will be final. In fact, with a web design at the …
Does Marketing Matter or is it Increasingly Irrelevant?
On 24, Dec 2005 | In Articles, Marketing Strategy | By Marcia K
Here at Open Marketing, we’re kind of known for asking the big, hairy, audacious questions. You know the kind of questions I mean. The ones everyone is afraid to ask. But that tend to linger long after you thought the discussion was over … the proverbial “elephants in the room”. One of those questions is whether marketing even is relevant in today’s times. A startling number of start ups are finding their way to market without the benefit of a marketing VP, something unheard of during the last bubble. Web 2.0 Start ups In actuality, marketing matters more and not less than ever before. Web 2.0 start ups may well be an anomoly. Let …
Just what the Doctor Ordered: an Extreme Makeover for Marketing
On 11, Oct 2005 | In Articles, Marketing Strategy | By Marcia K
Presentation given at SoftSummit, October 11, 2005 (Santa Clara, CA), a conference sponsored by Macrovision maker of Installshield and attended by some 1,000+ independent software vendors Argues that today we live and work in a time of extreme competition where products and brands are in excess supply. As a result, the traditional model of marketing—which is advertising centric—no longer fits. The alternative is to move towards a new model, one that represents an “extreme makeover” for marketing based on what we know works from direct marketing and marketing science. Soft Summit Presentation
Three strategies to improve campaign ROI
On 17, May 2005 | In Articles, ROI marketing | By Marcia K
There are three main ways to improve campaign ROI within a customer segment: Today, it is not uncommon to have the cost of new customer acquisition exceed what you will see in profits off the first purchase from a new customer. The way the major networks and publishers are pricing advertising vehicles has a lot to do with this. So one way to improve ROI is to look at ways to reduce new customer acquisition (NCA) costs. Many clients start out thinking that direct marketing and even some forms of interactive advertising are more expensive for NCA purposes than advertising. They are right on this, but only to a point. Often this misperception happens …
Why your next agency is likely to be a consultancy
On 13, Mar 2005 | In Articles | By Marcia K
Funny thing. Our phones are ringing again, for the first time in a long while. I guess this means that the great recession of 2001-2004 is finally over. Clients are starting to wake up from the big slumber, stretch, scratch themselves, and reach for the phone. They’re calling us and folks like us, not only to figure out where they should put their marketing dollars but also to help them find new sources of growth. This observation has been confirmed by no less than the Harvard Business Review (HBR) which recently wrote a nice article about the merits of outsourcing certain marketing functions to folks like us. “A discipline that was once principally creative has …
Retailers get a Q4 wake up call
Neo: “That’s not possible.” Morpheus: “I promised you the truth, Neo, and the truth is that the world you were living in was a lie.” Neo: “How?” Morpheus: “I’ll show you.” —From The Matrix (1999), starring Keanu Reeves as Neo and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus. What if you woke up in January 2005 and discovered that much of what you thought you knew about driving shareholder value was wrong. That you’d been living — and selling — in a world that looks real but is a distorted version of the truth. That’s the situation facing major retailers as they look back on the 2004 holiday season. Here are some of the rules that appear to …
Accountability
On 19, Oct 2004 | In Articles | By Marcia K
And its impact on the lifespace of the average CMO Splat! That sound you hear is another CMO hitting the dust. It’s September — the leaves become a brilliant, colorful mosaic, the air turns crisp and cool, and it’s hunting season for CMOs. See the folks in the orange flak jackets, armed to the teeth with Blackberrys and Mont Blancs? They’re the CEOs of public companies. See the ones running for their lives? Those poor folks are the CMOs. Their life expectancy is short. On average, a CMO lasts only 18-22 months before a CEO brings him down. It’s often not a particularly clean kill, either. At Firewhite, we have a simple prescription for increasing …
Marketing Dashboards and Causal Modeling
On 07, Oct 2004 | In Articles, Marketing Analytics | By Marcia K
“Hot Topics” Talk As presented at the American Marketing Association in October 2004
Marketing through the Rapids
On 30, Jun 2004 | In Articles, Marketing Strategy, ROI marketing | By Marcia K
As the economy (finally) recovers, marketers ask “what now” Crocodiles slither from the banks into the river as they continue their risk-filled journey. He sarcastically points them out to her: “Waiting for their supper, Miss.” Rose: Don’t be worried, Mr. Allnut. Charlie: Oh, I ain’t worried, Miss. Gave myself up for dead back where we started. — From The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart as Charlie and Katharine Hepburn as Rose. Things are finally beginning to look up. The African Queen is the classic story of a treacherous journey by boat through the African jungle. It may be the greatest movie ever made. Right now, on our own journey through the wilds of the business …
On Differentiation
On 21, May 2004 | In Articles, Email Marketing / Lead Nurturing, Marketing Strategy | By Marcia K
it takes a surprising amount of courage to build differentiation into products Sign hanging around the neck of a well dressed panhandler we spotted in downtown San Francisco: “Have Courage Will Differentiate for Six Figures” As a marketer, it is extremely tempting to push your company to build me-too products. After all, differentiation takes courage. A me-too product that tanks is bad enough, but something new and different that fails is a really hard decision to defend. It takes real nerve to try something new, a quality that seems in short supply inside most executive suits. At Firewhite, we don’t have any magic elixir that will give senior marketing people courage. This isn’t Oz, unfortunately, …
